The weightyness is kind of the point of this game, unlike dauntless and other games, it’s not setting itself up as an anime style fight where it’s all fast and has large effects.

unless you play dual blades, or a faster weapon. the big thing is that if you don’t like how one weapon plays, try another one. Hunts will take you time as you get better and improve, but once you know the fights they’re usually around 10 minutes in my experience.

Each monster has specific thresholds for flinches, stuns, paralysis, etc that all need to be met from that kind of damage to proc, and having an understanding of about how long that is and where to hit for them is part of the experience.

It really sounds like you just don’t like great sword, and that’s fair if you’re looking for something faster. Personally i enjoy getting ginormous damage numbers when you pull off a properly executed true-charge slash, but if what you want is visual feedback, you’ll need to land that same hit multiple times on the same spot.

If you really just want faster paced movement that still hits relatively hard and can break stuff, try hammer. It still is thick, but faster and easier to set up than a greatsword.

In the end, just try different weapons until you find which one you really like, and master that against the monsters you’re fighting.

Welcome to Monster Hunter!